Federal Health Spending Revised Downward

Sarah Kliff: “The federal government thinks it will spend $900 billion less on health care programs over the next decade than it projected just three years ago, according to a new analysis from the Committee for a Responsible Fiscal Budget.”

The reason is largely “due to the fact that health care costs have grown a lot slower in the past four years than they did in the past.”

Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare “cover more than a third of all Americans. And that means any change to health care spending, however tiny, can have a huge impact on the federal budget.”

” … most of the spending reduction comes from the fact that health care costs have grown slower than expected — a huge boon for a country that also happens to be a massive health insurer.”